Returning the Favor and other Slices of Life

Monday, April 17, 2006

So on the second hand of the night, I looked down at Rockets. Pocket Aces. American Airlines. This is it, I thought, we’re turning around two months of running bad TONIGHT, baby!

When you get your aces cracked on the second hand of the night, you know it’s gonna be a long night. When it happens again in the first hour of play, you’re just hurting. Queens cracked just adds to the swelling, and a pretty quick rebuy at Special K’s place Saturday night were all the truth in the cards for me. I managed to have aces hold up a little later in the evening to pull me close to even, but I never managed to forgive myself for the bonehead play of the night.

I’m holding J-6 hearts on the button. I limp, the blinds let me. Jack-high flop makes me happy, I check. SB bets $2, BB calls, I call. Turn 6, I’m even happier, I check again. SB bets $2, BB calls, I call. River is a lovely 6. I’m thrilled beyond belief, and then I do it. I commit the cardinal sin – I check my nuts on the river. Yes, there were a few hands that could beat me, but they weren’t holding those hands and I knew it. SB had an overpair and the BB had two pair. I knew this in my heart of hearts, just like I knew that they would call a $2-4 bet, and maybe even try to punish me with a raise. But I succumbed to Fancy Play Syndrome and went for the check-raise on the river. They both checked behind and I went on full-blown I’m-a-moron tilt. Yeah, I raked a decent little pot, but I was absolutely furious with myself for that move. Now it wasn’t the only stupid move I made all night, I certainly leaked off enough big blinds limping with shit I position (a massive leak in my game), but I made some good moves, too. I made a couple of tough laydowns and a couple of good calls. But I am still kicking myself for that lost bet two days later. We’re not going to talk about the great read I put on K’s buddy Brian to call his all-in when I was way ahead to have him catch running diamonds for the flush. I know, I owe you a dollar.

I played the Hammer Out Cancer charity tourney last night, because I promised I would, not because I really had any desire to play. My online game has been absolute crap lately and I’m gonna take a little time off (yeah right, look for me on Stars or FTP to see if I can hold to that), but I wanted to see if I could FINALLY make the top half of the field to catch a couple of WPBT-POY points. I finished 15th out of 61, so I was very pleased with my play, especially considering I lost about 30 minutes of play when the blinds got big because a stray cat jumped into my back yard to die of injuries sustained elsewhere and my dog was going absolute apeshit. So Suzy and I had to go outside at 11PM to deal with the friggin’ dog and then get Animal Control out to catch this poor kitty. Kitty was 8 shades of fucked up, so we’re glad Leko is up to date on his shots. But I felt like 15th was pretty good, and now I’m on the board at least with POY points. So I can be just like everybody else and trail STB. By a bunch.

I’m thinking of heading out tomorrow night to play this World Tavern Poker Tour thing. Anybody got any insight?

3 comments:

OK, I think I have to agree with you on your fancy play, but I actually think you should back it up a few notches to either the flop or the turn. I would probably have check/raised one of these streets for sure, more than likely the flop (weed it out, see what I'm really up against). Fancy-play is a major leak I'm working on. It is hardly fixed for sure, and sometimes my hand just takes over, somehow checking or betting without my mind telling it to. But I think fancy play is often the rule for me rather than the exception.

I was one of the 5 players at Falstaff's game and although it started out to be a rip-snorter...it cooled to a steady sort of flow. We all make errors when playing this fantastic game or any other card game of chance.

It was a fun evening and I look forward to a return with, hopefully, more players......Dad Warbucks